Double Trouble
by Rated PG-13
Summary: The twin children of the Avengers get thrown backwards in time and discover that the only way to reach their proper time is to reach it naturally by living through the many adventures their parents had before and after becoming a team, all while trying to find each other and avoiding spoilers at all costs.
1. Waking up on the floor

**Hi! Trying my hand at this. Let me know if you like it or not in the reviews please!**

**I don't own the Avengers. I just own Taylor and Tyler, my OCs.**

Taylor was not having a great day. All she had wanted to do was go down to her dad's workshop, see what he was working on, maybe help out. She loved helping him with his suits. She even had her own that she'd made with his help, although she didn't have it with her at the moment. That was too bad. She could probably use it to prove to the past version of her dad currently glaring at her that she was, in fact, from the future.

If he was going to build a time machine, he should really label it. It had just looked like any other failed invention sitting in his lab gathering dust. There was one feeble red light flashing erratically, but Taylor just assumed that meant it was plugged in or something. She had called her twin, the real technology whiz, down to help, and the two set to work. Soon enough they had it working, but that was the problem. They hadn't actually known what the rather nondescript gray box was supposed to do, just repaired the broken circuits and cleaned it out. The moment Tyler closed the access panel and flipped the switch on, it started to hum and glow with a blue light. The next thing she knew, she was on the floor of her father's old house with much younger versions of her dad and Pepper staring at her. And Tyler was nowhere in sight.

Well, this was going to be fun to explain.

She let out a little groan, alerting them that she was awake and alive, and hauled herself into a sitting position, noting that her arms were shaking badly. Huh. Time travel must take a lot out of you.

Tony jumped at the sound of her voice. Thank God he wouldn't have to explain away another dead girl in his house. The last one had made his stock dip forty points and he suspected one of his business rivals had planted the body there in order to harm his reputation, although that one hadn't just... appeared in a flash of blue light that was apparently some form of teleportation or time travel or whatever.

"Hey kid, how did you get in here? I have a million-dollar security system. No way could you sneak past that."

"I'm pretty sure I time-traveled, although I'm not quite sure. You'd need to ask Tyler, he was doing most of the work on that stupid machine in your basement. Why wouldn't you label a time machine anyway? It seems like a pretty important thing you should put a sign on in case your kids come wandering downstairs and happen across it, doesn't it!?" Taylor's voice had risen steadily during her tirade and by the end she was pretty much shouting. Her eyes flashed green for a moment and she had to breathe deeply to keep herself under control.

Tony frowned. This wasn't the first teenager to have shown up at his house claiming to be his spawn and asking for money, but it was the first one to claim they had time-traveled to get there. Not like that could be true or anything. "Look, where're your real parents? I'll send you home."

It was obvious by the fact she had ended up in Stark Manor and not the Avengers Tower that her dad probably hadn't even met her other parents yet, the five other people who would get their DNA scrambled together by SHIELD to make her brother and her, the people who were happy to take them in no matter how totally weird they were and no matter what weird things happened when they got angry. Taylor missed her crazy, nuclear family all of a sudden, and the tears started and wouldn't stop.

Pepper took charge then, pulling a fluffy brown blanket off of the couch and wrapping around the girl. Taylor wrapped her arms around the redhead and bawled into her shoulder, sobbing into Pepper's rather nice-looking sweater. Pepper didn't flinch away from the tears and rocked her back and forth, her motherly instincts kicking in. Taylor, exhuasted from time traveling, cried herself to sleep.


	2. How it all began

**Thanks to Rue Dawn for reviewing! Yes, I know it was pretty short... this chapter as well as future ones will hopefully be longer. :)**

_Flashback_

"So, you're telling me you made kids, beat them up to see how strong they were, and when they got out of control you tried to kill them? You realize that qualifies you as a seriously abusive father, right, Nick?" Tony Stark asked, unable to keep disbelief from his voice.

Nick Fury was unamused. "This isn't the time, Stark. These kids have the powers of all six of you and no clue how to use them, and they're not very cooperative. We tried to put them down quietly, but they broke out of their cage and-"

Cap held up a hand, a fairly disgusted expession on his face. "Wait a second. Cage? You were keeping these kids in a cage?"

"They're tiny. They probably didn't even notice," Fury said dismissively.

Black Widow leveled her infamous glare at him as memories of her own horrific childhood washed over her. No way in hell was she going to let kids that were pretty much her own son and daughter go through that. "We'll find the kids, Fury... but there is no way you're getting them back."

She turned on her heel and strolled away, slipping into stealth mode. The other Avengers nodded in agreement before following in her footsteps, and Fury was left to wonder what exactly he had expected they would do. He had assumed they would just catch the twins and bring them back, but now he realized that calling in parents to subject their kids to torture hadn't been the best idea. Well, at least it would stop Subjects 13 and 14 from wrecking havoc on the helicarrier.

The Avengers followed the trail of malfunctioning computers and injured SHIELD agents. "What happened to all of the technology?" Bruce wondered aloud as they passed a massive blank screen usually covered with scrolling data.

Tony frowned. "To take a wild guess, I'd say that at least one of these kids has Thor's power over electricity and no idea how to use it, so it's just running rampant, short-circuiting all of the computers. I hope that doesn't affect my suit," he added as an afterthought.

Thor laughed and shook his head, patting Tony on the shoulder so hard he stumbled, even in the Iron Man armor. "Nay, Man of Iron. Your armor was able to withstand the full force of Mjolnir. You need not worry about this child's fledgling powers."

Bruce's face turned ashen. "But they're my kids too, right? What if they... you know... have the same problem I have?"

It appeared that the possiblity of fighting two mini-hulks with no degree of control or understanding had clearly not occurred to the rest of the Avengers, and they froze mid-step. It was Clint who broke the silence.

"Nat, I think we should quit working for SHIELD. I don't think I like them anymore."

Natasha just smiled, possibly the largest emotional display any of the Avengers had ever gotten from her. Clint and Natasha shared a rather stiff hug and few congratulatory high-fives were shared before they returned to the matter at hand.

They didn't need to worry. They found the twins huddled in a closet, hugging each other tightly. They looked like they were about six or seven, far too young to have to suffer through this. The girl had blonde hair with red stripes, apparently taking more after Natasha, while the boy was a brunette. When the Avengers found them, they backed into the corner and the boy's eyes flashed green. Bruce recognized the look and hurried to calm his mini-me down before the helicarrier fell from the sky in flames.

"Look, we're not going to hurt you guys, we swear. We don't work for SHIELD. We're different, like you, and we can teach you how to control your powers. We don't want to fight you or hurt you at all. I know SHIELD was mean to you and did horrible things, but that doesn't mean you have to hurt them back. You can leave all this," Bruce gestured at the helicarrier, "behind, and come with us."

"Is this a trick?" the girl asked in a small voice. "You're SHIELD agents trying to trick us and make us go back, aren't you?"

Her brother nodded. "Yeah! We know you guys use holograms and things to make stuff that isn't real look real. Well, we're not going back, never ever! You guys were gonna kill us! We saw those guys coming in with big guns, that's why we was scared and ran!"

"And you hurted us," his sister added. "You kept saying it was gonna stop, you just wanted to see how strong we was, but you didn't... you didn't..." she collapsed into tears and her brother shot a glare at the Avengers, clearly blaming them for everything he and his sister had been through.

He was getting really riled up, the Avengers saw with alarm. There was green fire dancing in his eyes and he was close to hulking out. Tony shook his head in exasperation. "Look, kid, we'd never work for SHIELD. They're royal pricks and we're not gonna hand you over to them, but if you don't come with us now they'll find you, decide you can't be controlled and used for whatever the hell they wanted you for, and kill you. You want that or not?"

Both kids shook their heads slowly.

"Then come hither, spawn of science!" Thor boomed, startling everyone. "You must see the Man of Iron's mighty castle!"

The girl moved first, standing slowly and taking a couple steps towards her would-be rescuers. She poked Iron Man, surprised to feel solid metal under her touch. "You're real!"

Iron Man grinned behind his mask. The kid was just so cute! "You betcha, kiddo. Now come on, we have to get you someplace safe."

_End Flashback_

Tyler wished he could have chosen where he was going to appear. Maybe someplace nice, like a carnival, or a movie theatre. He could watch a movie while he figured out what the hell had happened, that'd be nice. But no, he had to appear at the one place both he and his twin had been born, tortured, and escaped with the help of the Avengers. SHIELD Headquarters. He had hoped to never have to see that damn eagle again. Stands for freedom and justice my ass.

Right now the more pressing worry was where Taylor was. His little sister (he still thought of her as little even though they had actually been born, or created really, at exactly the same time) had been emotionally scarred by the first few years of their life and tended to break down when in stressful situations, which meant that he worried about her whenever he wasn't there for her. He wondered where she had ended up. They had started off in Avengers Tower, but that didn't explain what he was doing at SHIELD Headquarters now, or why they weren't in the same place, since they had traveled together. What would happen if only one person used the machine, would they get split in half and the halves would be sent to different places? That was a disturbing thought.

Or maybe they had ended up in same place, SHIELD had caught Taylor, and they had restarted their experiments on her... well, that thought was definitely worse. The idea of his poor sister, probably having her PTSD-riddled mind picked apart by those bastards made Tyler slightly sick to his stomach. Or maybe that was the effects of whatever travelling method they had used.

It was at this point that the little warning voice in his mind shouted for him to duck, seconds before an arrow split the air where his head had been.

**What do you think? Leave a review pleeeease!**


	3. How not to handle a stressful situation

**Thanks to Rue Dawn for reviewing again! And for being my only reviewer... I know there are more of you reading this, I can see you on the traffic graph! Y u no review?**

**Sorry this took a little while. I was on vacation in Chicago. Did you know they renamed the Sears Tower the Willis Tower? I didn't. Made me want to watch Die Hard.**

Tyler whirled around and came face to face with his beloved Auntie and Uncle. Well, maybe? They looked like them, but Auntie Tasha's hair was way shorter, and Uncle Clint didn't have the grey streaks that they loved to tease him about. They looked... younger. Like, way younger. He had seen them when they looked like this in pictures, but other then that this sight was totally alien to say the least, not to mention the fact that they were wearing their old SHIELD uniforms. They never wore those, and only rarely talked about the time when they had been employed there.

Tyler's train of what-the-hell thoughts were interuppted when his uncle (actually biologically one of his dads, but he and his sister had always thought of Tony and Pepper as their parents, and all of the other Avengers as being their aunts and uncles) cocked another arrow and aimed at him.

"WHOA!" Tyler shouted, throwing his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "No need for that, Un- Cli- Agent Barton? I come in peace!"

"Come from where? The security cameras say you just appeared. Who are you working for, and how did they get their hands on teleportation technology?" the Black Widow snarled. Tyler realized he had never seen her this vicious before, and he was rather terrified, even moreso because the only explanation he could think of involved traveling through time somehow, and he knew them well enough to know they were too smart to buy it for a second. Still, it was worth a shot (as opposed to _being _shot).

"I'm not working for anyone! As for where I come from, well, technically, here. Me and my sister were created by SHIELD as lab experiments... or we're going to be? Geez, time travel hurts my brain. If that's what even happened, I dunno!" Tyler shouted, green light flashing across his field of vision. He froze and took a deep breath. In, out. In, out. The green faded away and Tyler sighed in relief. He had inherited his Uncle Bruce's ability to hulk out, but he had more trouble controlling his green side then his uncle.

"Wait a second, slow down. Time travel? Are you claiming to be from the future?" Uncle Clint chuckled, but there was barely any humor in it. "That's the worst excuse I've ever heard for trespassing."

Auntie Tasha nodded in agreement. Her grip tightened on her gun and she motioned for him to get up. Her finger was on the trigger. Tyler suddenly realized he could die here, in the past, and his future family would never even know what had happened to him. His dad had probably discarded the machine that had sent them here after deciding it didn't work, so there was no chance of rescue coming. Jesus, what had they done?

"Yes. I am. Please don't shoot me," he added when he saw his aunt's hand twitch upwards. "I'm pretty sure I am indeed from the future, since you look much younger and... um... meaner then when I know you."

Uncle Clint looked a little bit offended by his last comment. "Mean? I don't look mean. Nat, do I look mean?"

Auntie Tasha rolled her eyes. "From the perspective of a teenage boy whom you just attempted to kill, I'd say yes, you look mean." She ignored her partner's offended 'humph' and turned back to Tyler. Tyler wasn't pleased by this, because he wasn't used to receiving his aunt's infamous death glare, and this was the second time in five minutes he was on the butt end of it. "You say you know us in the future?"

"Yeeeessss...?" Tyler was hesitant about answering too many questions about the future. Unlike his sister, an action junkie, Tyler loved science fiction movies, and had seen enough of them to know that knowing anything about your own future was B-A-D. Like, universe-destroying quantum-loophole erased from existence bad.

"So we're still alive in the future?" Uncle Clint questioned. Aunt Tasha shot him a look and he shrugged. "What? People don't live long in our line of work, Nat. I just wanted to double-check."

Natasha grabbed Tyler by the arm. "We better take you to Director Fury. He'll know what to do. Don't try any funny business, or you're history."

Tyler froze in his tracks, involuntarily attempting to dig his heels into dirt that didn't exist in SHIELD's smooth, polished hallways. No. No. No no no no no. He couldn't go back to Fury, back to the lab, back to the cage, where they had run all of those awful experiments and... and hurt them just to see to they were strong... oh no oh no oh no...

Tyler was hyperventilating, and his field of vision was tinted green. It must have been obvious, because Clint held up a hand for Natasha to stop pulling him. "Nat, look at him. He's sick. He looks sort of greenish. We can't take him to see Fury like this. We have to get him to the sick bay."

Tyler felt like he was slowly being pushed towards a chasm of nothingness. No matter how much he fought, he would eventually fall, lose control, and hulk out. There was nothing to cling to, no way to gain traction, no way to stop what had been set in motion by that one evil, awful, unspeakable word. _Fury. _He was on the brink of the crevasse now, and he knew that when the inevitable destructive blackout came, he would welcome it. He had the vague sensation that he was being carried. That was no good. If Uncle Clint or Aunt Tasha were anywhere near him when he hulked out, he would surely kill them.

He managed to force a few words through lips that were rapidly turning into rubber. "Put... me... down... run."

Then he fell into the chasm and green closed in on him.


	4. PTSD

**First of all, I'd like to give a huge 'Thank you' to Raven6224 and SuperWhoPotterAvenge-X for reviewing and saying you liked it! That really means a lot, and it's reviews like that that keep them updates coming, guys! Secondly, sorry for the cliffhanger. I just couldn't think of a better way to end the chapter.**

Taylor slowly pried her eyes open, or attempted to, because it seemed like she had been asleep and crying for so long that they were crusted over with some gooey shit. Not cool. By the time she managed to clear her vision, she opened her eyes to see Pepper standing directly in front of her, holding a tray of bacon, french toast, and orange juice.

If her mom didn't look ten years younger then she normally did, Taylor would have assumed that all of the previous day was just a fever dream or something and she and Tyler were safe and sound, back in their proper time in Avengers Tower. But her mom really did look younger. She lacked all of the stress lines and gray hairs her older self had developed before finally deciding to retire and act as the resident mother hen of the Tower.

Pepper smiled warmly at her. Taylor remembered dimly that her mom had always wanted children, and was overjoyed when she and her brother came into her life. "JARVIS told me you had woken up, so I brought you breakfast. You were asleep for almost two days... are you alright?"

A million possible answers to that question bubbled through her mind. Yes. No. What the hell do you think? Definitely not. After debating internally for a moment, she decided to just go with the truth. "No. I got thrown back in time and now my parents don't even believe I'm their kid and I don't know where my brother is and I'm worried he'll do something stupid and I want to go home!" she wailed in one long, run-on sentence. She waited for the tears to come but none did. Maybe she had used them all up.

She put her face in her hands to block out the craziness surrounding her, but she could feel the matress sink a couple inches as Pepper sat down next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Shhhhh, shhhh, don't worry. Don't cry. I believe you."

Taylor glanced at her mom in disbelief. "You do?"

Pepper smiled and shrugged. "Sure. With all the crazy weapons Tony makes, I can imagine him making a time machine."

Taylor frowned. Nice as it was, there was something wrong with that statement... _weapons. _"Dad doesn't make weapons!" she exclaimed.

"What do you mean? It's how he made his fortune."

"Well, yeah, but he stopped doing all of that after..." Taylor trailed off. "Afghanistan hasn't happened yet," she whispered, careful not to let her mom hear her. So her dad wasn't even Iron Man yet. She must be further back than she thought.

Pepper seemed to discard her strange remark as just another disoriented statement. "Well, anyways, a lot of strange stuff had been happening lately. There was a story on the news earlier today about some sort of monster attacking a goverment facility."

Taylor got a sinking feeling in her gut. "Was it green? Was it totally musclebound? And did it answer to the name of Tyler?"

"Well, yes to the first two... how did you know that?"

Taylor shot up. "I need to see that news story."

Tyler always felt strangely detached when he was in hulk mode. The Avengers called his version of the Hulk either Mini-Hulk or Junior, so they could tell them apart when fighting. Right now, Junior was at the wheel, and Tyler was in the passenger seat, watching everything but unable to stop his other side. He looked on helplessly as Junior threw Aunt Tasha through a window. That was good. She'd be cut up pretty bad, but she'd live. Uncle Clint had dropped him upon noticing he was growing at an alarming rate, and had hightailed down the hallway, probably to sound the alarm.

As Junior made a mad dash towards the nearest door, Tyler hoped SHIELD didn't attempt to capture him. He really didn't like killing people. Even when it wasn't technically him, the blood was still on his hands. His big green hands. Tyler sighed mentally and wished for the thousandth time that Taylor had gotten the Hulk instead of him. They were originally meant to be a single person with all the powers of all the Avengers, but the machine couldn't handle it and created twins with three powers manifesting in each of them. Taylor had Natasha's agility and speed, Steve's strength and stamina, and Thor's nearly limitless weather control powers.

Tyler had gotten pure genius from Tony and Bruce, and great aim from Clint, but he was also stuck with the Hulk. Well, at least would get him out of this hellhole. A moment after that thought crossed his mind, he felt a prick in his back. Oh no. He spun around and backhanded the poor agent into a wall, but the syringe was already empty. Dammit! He focused all of his remaining energy into reaching the door. It looked so close, but the energy was rapidly being sucked out of his legs as the sedative pumped through his system.

His eyelids felt like they were made of lead. No, reach the door, Tyler. You can do it. Just ten more feet. Come on. It's just a sedative. You can reach the door, you... can...

Tyler collapsed on the ground. The green haze in front of his eyes faded away and he closed them. It felt nice. He could take a little nap, that'd be good...

The boy was unconsious within five minutes. That was a new record. Usually SHIELD sedative only took sixty seconds to take effect. He was out cold and didn't notice the dozens of agents surronding him with rifles as one who had probably lost a bet or something stepped forward to cuff him.

Taylor watched the report with growing dismay.

_"A humanoid creature, with an appearance similar to that of the infamous Hulk, was captured at nine'o'clock this morning by the government agency known as the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, also known as SHIELD. Nicholas Fury, director of SHIELD, is here to comment."_

Taylor's hair crackled with static at the mention of the name Fury, and the screen momentarily went fuzzy. Taylor shook her head and it returned to normal. She wanted to see what that bastard had to say about her brother.

_"Well, I had been hoping to keep this quiet, but some reporter got ahold of it and now I have to do crowd control," _Fury said grumpily.

"You deserve it," Taylor said to no-one in particular.

_"The creature initially appeared to be a young Caucasian human male. Two of my best agents approached him and attempted to take him into custody when he refused to profide a reasonable explanation for trespassing on SHIELD's property."_

"He wouldn't because he COULDN'T, you dipshit! I bet he told you the truth, and you didn't believe him, even though you deal with magicy science bullshit every FRIGGIN DAY!" Taylor shouted at the screen, temporarily forgetting that it was just a recording and he couldn't hear her.

Electricity crackled up and down her body and she glared at the image of the man she hated. She was going to go rescue her brother.


	5. Attacking SHIELD

**I bet you guys are loving these daily updates, huh? Just a heads up, I go back to school in a week and won't be able to update as frequently. It'll probably be about twice or three times a week.**

**Also, this chapter has some pretty strong language and violence, plus bloodiness. If you don't like, don't read, I won't be offended.**

Taylor tapped into the energy reserves inside her brain and her blonde-red hair stood straight up as an aura of electricity appeared around her. She marched though the open door of Stark Manor and mapped out in her mind where SHIELD Headquarters was. She was pretty sure it was in Washington D.C., not that far from her current location in New York as the crow flies. She crouched down, staring intently at the hazy blue sky, and then jumped, using the air currents to push herself through the sky.

Going about the same speed as a bullet leaving a gun, she reached D.C. relatively quickly and knew SHIELD's Headquarters on sight. That damn eagle logo. She unconsiously intensified the electricity around herself. Just in case.

She landed by the front door. If she had to kill people, she may as well be polite about it. Unlike her brother, Taylor wasn't quite so uptight about murder. She had always found that funny, since he was much better at it. She pushed the button on the intercom and a crackling voice asked her to state her business. She wasn't sure if it naturally sounded like that, if her electrical powers were tampering with it, or if the agent was just really nervous or had a bad cold. She didn't really care, either.

"Yeah, hi, asshole. My business here is to rescue my brother. Let me in or I'll break in, find you and melt your brain," Taylor stated calmly. Her psyche was also much more delicate than her brother's, and standing outside of the place where she had been- or would be- tortured for years, she was more than happy to make some SHIELD goon shit himself.

She was secretly kind of glad she didn't have to kill him, though. The man had apparently realized the sincerity in her threat and decided he valued his life more than the security of a single door. Taylor smiled and waved at the camera and walked into SHIELD.

It didn't look very different from the SHIELD she knew. The big holographic screens were just regular television screens in this time period, and there was no mention of the Avengers anywhere, but that was probably because they didn't exist yet. She should probably do something about that, or risk never being born. Then she remembered watching Back to the Future with her brother and decided she'd take her chances.

A squadron of agents flowed out of every door and hallway available. They formed a perimeter around her, but didn't close in because of the risk that the lightning dancing around her would kill them. Taylor smiled dangerously.

"Look, I just came for my brother. I'm going to leave with him. The only question is, are we going to do it the easy way or the hard way?"

A man who carried an air of authority about him spoke up. "Miss, we have you completely surrounded. The sensible thing to do would be to surrender."

Taylor laughed. "Wrong answer, bro." A bolt of lightning shot out and struck the man, knocking him to the ground. Taylor couldn't tell if he was dead or just unconsious. A couple other agents took a nervous step backwards.

"Look, this is a really simple choice, you guys. Either you tell me where my brother is and I go get him and everybody lives, or this place and everybody in it is fucked. You all want to die? I'm taking 'no response' as a yes."

One agent, who looked scared shitless, spoke up. "Who's your brother?"

Taylor gave him a dazzling smile. "Thank you! My brother is that boy you captured earlier today, looks like a miniture hulk when he's pissed- seriously, what did you guys _do _to set him off? I saw it on the news, by the way. You did a fantastic job keeping that quiet."

"I'm afraid we can't return your brother at this time, Miss. There's just too much we can learn from him," another agent answered, placing his hand over the mouth of another who looked like he was about to tell her where to find Tyler. Taylor sighed and shrugged.

"Let the record show I tried to warn you," she said before holding out her hand and spraying shards of lightning into the crowd of agents, clearing a path for herself. She was glad that at this point in time some of their guns shot bolts of electricity, and others were powered by the same. She didn't have to worry about those ones.

She ran ahead, punching an agent with an electrified fist and kicking another one in the chest. She raised the brightness of her ball of electricity so that they couldn't tell exactly where she was and charged into the ring. Taylor felt like she was finally getting revenge for all those years of torture. In the back of her mind, there was a little voice warning her that she should be going to get Tyler now and running before heavier reinforcements came, but she didn't care. She felt _amazing._

Fury looked up from the security monitors and frowned at Hill. "Give me good news, Agent. Is there any way for our agents to stop her without giving up the other one?"

Hill shook her head. "Short of lauching a nuke, I'd say that's a hard no, sir. She appears to be fueled by rage, like her brother, but her powers aren't like anything we've ever seen before. She's something new. Sir, is it really worth the lives of all those agents? Why don't we just release the brother?"

Fury bit his lip and glanced at the screen again. The girl's true form wasn't even visible within the glowing energy ball she had generated to shield herself. Smart. That would throw off the agent's aim. As he watched, lightning arced across the room from her shielded form and struck an agent who was trying to flee. "Send a man down to negotiate. Have him wear one of those rubber hazmat suits. Try to avoid releasing the brother if you can."

Taylor had cleared the room and let herself relax a little. One of the agents on the floor moaned and Taylor went to kick him before noticing she was shot in the leg. Huh. Adrenaline does weird things to your brain. It hurt all of a sudden and Taylor groaned in pain, sitting down hard on the body of one of the dead agents. She peeled her pant leg from the injured area and winced at the sight. It looked bad. Nothing too serious, but it was pretty bloody.

She pulled a knife off of the body of a nearby agent and dug into her leg, prying the bullet out. It hurt like hell, but it was over fast. And now it was bleeding more. Shit. Shit. Shit.

Taylor was pretty sure she was losing blood. It made a red waterfall down her leg. She was starting to feel a little lightheaded and didn't like it at all. There was going to be a second wave of SHIELD agents coming to capture or kill her, probably better prepared, and she'd need to be ready. This was going to hurt a lot... a cluster of sparks jumped from Taylor's hand to the hole in her leg, sealing it shut. She yelped with pain and wished she had an ice pack to put on the electical burn.

A single man entered the room. He was clad in rubber. Smart. Taylor looked warily at him. He was probably smiling disarmingly, but the effect was killed by the mask he wore to protect himself from her lightning. "Ma'am-"

"Oh, so I've moved from 'Miss' to 'Ma'am' now, have I? What did that take? Killing an entire room full of your asshole agents who would rather die then give me my brother back? You've kidnapped him!" Taylor snapped.

"Calm down, please. If you don't want me to refer to you by a title, perhaps you would tell me your name?" the negotiator asked carefully.

"My name is Taylor. My twin brother is Tyler. We don't have a last name, because we were made in a lab by people just like you. We were experimented on and tormented for years. Now we've been sent here and I need him back."


	6. Reunion

**Whenever I read reviews, I get this warm fuzzy feeling. You guys are so nice! BTW, DO NOT be scared to offer constructive criticism or ideas as to where the story could go next, because I have a vague idea but am always willing to hear recommendations.**

A stony silence followed Taylor's declaration, with the agent sitting across from her apparently unwilling to break it. It seemed he had no choice, however, because Taylor had laid an ultimatum down and was not willing to negotiate. He cleared his throat. "I understand you want your brother back, Miss Taylor, but he is a scientific wonder, the sort of thing we here at SHIELD dedicate our lives to-"

He broke off his sentence when Taylor held up a hand and sat down on one of the bodies on the floor. Her injured leg was killing her. "Sit," she offered. The man in the rubber suit looked uncomfortable, but did so. Taylor sighed. "Look, I know why they sent you down here, buddy. They want me gone without giving up my brother. Am I right so far?"

The agent nodded a little bit. Taylor continued. "Well, it ain't happening. I didn't come here to haggle. I only want one thing. That is my brother back with me, safe and sound. I can wait," she added, leaning back a little bit to make herself more comfortable. "Go on, run tell your boss that I can't be reasoned with and have to be destroyed. Just remember, these guys?" She paused to gesture around the room. "They didn't want to give me Tyler back either, and they're dead. So what do you think you should do?"

She laced her fingers together, leaned back, and half-closed her eyes, waiting for the negotiator to leave. When he finally did, she let out a sigh, feeling she had been simultaneously threatening and nonchalant, which was the mixture she had been aiming for. She didn't expect an answer for at least a few hours, and decided to get up to hunt through the pockets and backpacks of the agents. She was starving, an unfortunate side effect of summoning as much energy as she had.

One of the men had a candy bar in his pocket, and although it was a little bit melted Taylor scarfed it down like she wouldn't get a chance tomorrow. Maybe she wouldn't. It was hard to know with SHIELD. She really wished one of the men had brought a McDonald's Happy Meal to work or something, but then realized that even if he had he wouldn't have brought it out with him when he confronted a hostile electrical teenager standing in the lobby. Taylor felt weird describing herself like that.

Taylor decided to take a nap and try to restore some energy. She pulled jackets off of some of the nearby agents, laid them down on the floor, and curled up on them, setting up an electrical dome around her so agents couldn't sneak up on her. They were spies, after all. The only spies she could trust were Auntie and Uncle. That was because they had resigned from SHIELD the same day they found and adopted her and Tyler. She missed Tyler. He would probably know how to get them home. He had done most of the work on the machine that sent them back, after all.

A few hours later, thumping footsteps protruded into her dreams and she shook herself awake. "What?" she asked the ring of heavily armed agents who were staying a healthy distance away from the little force field she had set up. She was now thankful for it.

A man who looked really familiar stepped forward. Taylor had to stare at his face for a moment before it clicked. "Uncle Clint?" she squeaked.

He sighed. "Why did you call me- you know what, it doesn't matter. I need to go see Nat in the critical care unit and make sure she's all right, so let's make this quick. Because we are not getting anything from your brother and since his capture all he has done was sit in the corner and stare at the wall, we will agree to release him into your care. However, you will be charged with fifty-seven counts of second-degree murder and your brother with thirty-two counts of manslaughter."

Taylor was not particularly worried about the lawsuits, seeing as under the law neither she nor her brother existed. "Good luck with that," she said with a smile.

Tyler was walked up wearing handcuffs, which really would have been as useful as toilet paper had he lost his cool and hulked out. That must have been what he was focusing on while he was locked up, Taylor realized. Her brother was trying to spare the lives of his captors. Wow. Her brother was definitely a better person than her. For a moment she felt ashamed of the dead bodies she had left on the floor. Then she noticed his head was lolling a little and he had probably been given drugs so he didn't kill everyone who tried to transport him, and wouldn't be noticing the bodies she had left everywhere.

She let the electrical field around her disperse and hefted him over her shoulders in a fireman's carry, thankful for the strength she had inherited from her Uncle Steve. She walked out of SHIELD without so much as a backwards glance, half expecting that one of the bastards would try to shoot her in the ass. Thankfully, none did.

Taylor accessed that little part of her mind that let her control the air currents and took off towards the only place she was certain existed in this time where she would definitely be safe. She would have a lot of explaining to do, she mused as she steered towards Tony Stark's house.

**So, yeah. This chapter was shorter, but Taylor and Tyler are back together, yay!**

Tyler: Wha-where am I?

**Shush. You're not supposed to wake up until next chapter.**


	7. Pizza Time

**Hey guys! I'll be trying to insert a tad more humor and character growth and nice stuff like that into the story from now on. Just a heads up. Also, sorry for no update yesterday, I was busy helping plan a party.**

**This chapter contains highly confusing time-travel discussions. You have been warned. **

When Taylor and Tyler landed at Stark Manor, they were hurt, tired, dirty, hungry, and brain-raped. It definitely showed, because after Tyler rang the doorbell and Pepper came to let them in, she screamed. Loudly. It was a testament to Tony Stark's brilliant engineering that the nearby windows didn't break.

Taylor smiled weakly. "Hi. Can we come in?"

Pepper nodded wordlessly and directed them to the sofa. "I'm guessing this is your brother?" she managed after a moment.

Tyler waved. "Yeah... whoa, trippy color scheme," he muttered, stumbling a little as Taylor guided him inside. She wished the drugs SHIELD had used to sedate him would wear off. Her brother was already prone to long, semi-sensible rants that sounded like runaway trains of thought. Now he was like that, but minus the actual thought.

The twins plopped themselves down on the sofa and stared into oblivion for a couple minutes. Pepper hovered awkwardly nearby, clearly wondering if she should stay and cater to their needs or leave them to recuperate on their own. Tyler clearly wasn't in the mood to order anything, so Taylor took charge.

"Waitress, we'd like a change of clothes, two large cheese pizzas, some blankets, an ice pack and the TV remote, please," she muttered. Pepper tossed her the remote and grabbed a phone to order the pizza. Taylor could hear half of the phone call, and it made her smirk.

"Hello, Fibonacci's? I'd like to order two large cheese pizzas. Delivery, please. 10880 Malibu Point. Yes, Tony Stark's house. No, it's not for him. No, you won't be asked to make change for a thousand. Alright, thank you." She hung up the phone and smiled at the siblings slumped over the couch. "It'll be here in about fifteen minutes. That's the great thing about Fibonacci's, they're super close by."

Tyler opened his eyes blearily. "Aren't they in California, though?"

Taylor squealed and hugged her brother, overjoyed that he seemed to be returning to conscious thought. "We _are _in California, goofball. It's Dad's old house."

"Oh."

Taylor was concerned. Usually her brother would react to that sort of revelation in a more extreme way then just 'oh.' Then again, he had just been through government hell in SHIELD's basement, so she wasn't sure she could blame him. She did hope her excitable, ingenious brother came back soon, though. His genius might be the only thing that could get them back to their proper time.

"Heads up!" Pepper called, and Taylor raised her hand to grab the ice pack out of the air, sighing in relief as she pressed it onto her self-inflicted burn.

"You have good reflexes," her mom noted as she draped blankets over the twins. "I'm sorry, we don't have any clothes in your size. I can go buy some later today, if you like," she offered.

Taylor smiled. "That would be great."

Pepper left, presumably to go catch up on her other duties as Tony's assistant, and Taylor and Tyler were left alone, hugging each other on the couch, thoroughly bombed out of their minds. However, Tyler was not, in fact, as shell-shocked as he appeared. He had suffered some degree of trauma in being exposed to his old- very old- tormentors, and he had immediately remembered his old tactic for getting them to get frustrated and leave him alone- curl into a ball and do absolutely nothing, and live just inside his mind. That had included eating, however, and he was pretty sure he had burned about a billion calories as Junior. He was thankful for his twin, ordering him a pizza just for himself. That was nice of her.

He slowly smiled, returning his sister's hug. She was obviously surprised, not expecting him to be awake yet. "Whoa, you're awake? Are you okay?" she asked, patting him down for injuries.

"I'm fine, Taylor. Trust me. It was really scary, though... I was only there for a couple hours and I already hulked out. I hope Auntie and Uncle are okay..." he added in concern.

Taylor patted him on the back. "Don't worry, I saw Uncle when you got given back to me, and he mentioned going to visit Auntie. They're both alive, don't worry." A thought suddenly occurred to her. "Oh, God. What would happen to us if we accidentally killed one of our parents in the past?"

Even coming out of a haze of drugs and trauma, Tyler could answer that. "It would be a paradox. If we kill our parents, or do anything to prevent them from eventually meeting, becoming a team, and then creating us, we cease to exist. If we never exist, our parents still live, and we're born, but then we kill them in the past and are erased again. It can't happen."

Taylor was visibly confused. "Can you explain that in English?"

"Um, Terminator is one of your favorite movies, right?"

"Duh!"

Tyler had already known this- along with The Matrix, Terminator was one of the few movies that both he and his sister loved, although he was pretty sure he was the only one who fully understood both of them. "Okay, what would have happened if the T-800 had succeeded in killing Sarah Connor?"

"John Connor would never be born and the human resistance never existed."

"Well, that was what it wanted, right? To ensure that John is never born. But if John is never born, what happens?"

"Skynet rules the world and we're all fucked."

Tyler snickered. That was just like his sister. She wasn't dumb, it was just that she immediately leaped for the easiest and most practical answer, instead of his more philosophical debates. "Not quite. If John is never born, there would be no need to send a Terminator back in time, right?"

"I guess..."

"But if the Terminator doesn't go back, what happens?"

"Sarah gives birth to John... ohhhhhhh. I get it, I get it."

"So, the situation is impossible. That's called a time paradox, and they are the main reason time travel _should _be impossible. It's way too dangerous," Tyler finished.

Taylor shrugged helplessly. "Bit late for that now, isn't it?"

**So, that's Chapter 7. Should be a bit more of what the story will be like in the future. Tell me if you like it by reviewing!**


	8. Naptime

**Guys... guyssssss... why'd you stop reviewing? ;.;**

**That hurts, bro. That hurts.**

**Anyways, this would have been done sooner, but half of the chapter got deleted _right _as I was getting ready to post it and I had to rewrite it. **

The pizza was hot and delicious, both twins eating their weight in cheese, sause, and bread before collapsing onto the couch and moaning in contentment. Fibonacci's really knew their stuff. No wonder the Avengers still ordered it from across the country in the future.

Tyler and Taylor were both asleep, snuggled in the clean clothes Pepper had gotten them as well as a gigantic pile of blankets, when Tony Stark got home. He promptly dropped him suitcase on his foot. He was very glad that he had only been carrying it around for show, and hadn't put anything in it. Otherwise that would have hurt. A lot.

"What the hell, Pepper? Now there's two of them?" he nearly shouted.

Pepper materialized immediately. "Well, they showed up looking absolutely awful, almost like they'd been in a fight... I couldn't just turn them down. Really. It would be inhumane."

Tony groaned. "What, so now I need to host _two _weird kids? Does the other one say they time-traveled to get here too?"

"Well, he didn't talk much when he got here, at least that I heard, and then they demolished some pizza and passed out," Pepper explained.

"I bet I paid for the pizza too, right?" Tony pouted.

"Oh, don't be like that. You have plenty of cash. It may as well go to a good use instead of funding more weapons."

"Peps, we talked about this. Weapons research is how I make my living. It's not like a personal thing, and they go to a good use. They help defend our country, right? Captain America would be proud," he smirked, his tone laced with bitterness. Memories from Tony's childhood flickered behind his eyes, all those time when his father would turn down time with his son to search for a fallen hero he would never find.

For all his genius, Howard Stark could never recognize the fact his search was fruitless. Tony saw a touch of irony in that.

Pepper smiled gently, reading his thoughts. "Your dad loved you, Tony. He just was really, really bad at showing it. And I bet if you ever have kids, you'll be a much better dad then he ever could be."

Tony didn't talk in response to that, but the look of gratitude in his eyes said plenty. Pepper was good at knowing what he needed to hear. It was one of her many skills, and one of the things he loved about her. Not that he loved her. It would be much more complicated for him to be in a long-lasting relationship with someone he saw every day then the easy one-night stands he was used to. Besides, he had a playboy image to uphold.

Nick Fury felt a headache coming on, and popped an aspirin in his mouth to alliviate the pain. After the attack by the crazy blonde teenager, and after being forced to release their only bargaining chip, Fury was worried about the trouble the super-powered kids could cause. Just to fish for ideas, he had sent a memo to all SHIELD personnel asking them how they would deal with this problem. He had gotten hundreds of results, and was currently going through them with Agent Coulson.

Most of the agents simply suggested killing or recapturing the twins, which would be great if it were possible, but according to the tracker they had implanted in the boy, the siblings were currently living at Tony Stark's house. Stark had apparently gotten some sort of complex from growing up with a crazy dad obsessed with Captain America, because he had a hard time listening to any authority figure and would almost certainly not give up the kids without a fight.

Fury didn't want to fight Stark to get the twins back either. The man was a grade-A genius and weapons developer, so it made even SHIELD's director shudder to imagine what sort of defense machanisms he probably had in place. Coulson suddenly spoke up, interrupting Fury's thoughts.

"This one says to send in a stealth mission, sir. That could work if we chose the right agents."

"No, no, no. Stealthy or not, our targets are now inside a virtual fortress. Plus, we don't want to alienate Stark. A lot of our newer weapons are Stark Industries issued."

Coulson nodded. Many of the suggestions he only took a cursory glance at before moving on. One held his attention.

"Sir, this is a pretty good idea. One agent is sent undercover to work at Stark Industries, gaining the trust of Mr. Stark as well as his new charges."

Fury was intrigued. It could work. "Who submitted this idea?"

"Agents Barton and Romanoff claim to have worked together on it, sir."

"Do they suggest anyone for the role?"

"Agent Romanoff nominated herself, but she's going to be in the hospital for at least another month, sir. There is also a glaring issue with sending her."

"Yes?"

"Agents Barton and Romanoff were the ones to first encounter the boy, sir. Unless she is very well disguised, there is a good chance of him recognizing her and blowing her cover. I'm sure I don't have to tell you we only have one shot at this, sir."

Fury balanced the pros and cons in his head for a moment. He knew that the Black Widow was an expert actress and practically a chameleon, so the boy having seen her before probably wouldn't be an issue. She could take the role of a shy and demure computer expert, not the harsh and icy spy he had doubtless seen. "Send her."

Coulson looked surprised. "Sir, are you sure? She's hospitalized!"

"She's the best. Besides, the kids will let their guard down if we delay. You know, a false sense of security type of thing. They won't be prepared when Romanoff makes her move."

**Dun dun dunnnn! So, please review!**

_Taylor: Please? If she thinks people don't like the story, she'll just end it and leave us trapped in the past!_

Tyler: That's scientifically impossible. If the story ended without proper closure, it would mean we never existed to the existential paradoxes posed by such an event.

_Taylor: What?_

Tyler: We wouldn't continue to exist in the past, we'd just disappear. Like Marty McFly.

_Taylor: Who?_

Tyler: Oh my God, you've never seen Back to the Future?

_Taylor: I'm scared to say no, but..._

Tyler: YOU MUST WATCH IT RIGHT NOW.

**So, I noticed how some people write dialogue of their OCs after the story and I'll probably be doing that from now on. :)**


	9. We're not going back to the future

**Bold is me**

_Italics are Taylor_

Underlined is Tyler

Regular text is the story

**By the way, I don't write these chapters on a Word processor. I write them right on the doc manager. That way, if I'm in the middle of one, I can update from my mom's house or my dad's. :)**

Natasha was in surgery when Coulson arrived. Apparently some of the glass shards had become embedded under her skin, and they had needed to operate to get them out. Coulson was pretty sure the spy had now broken the previous record for 'amount of stitches recieved for a workplace accident'. He wasn't sure whether getting thrown through a window counted as an accident or not, but he was willing to bet it did.

The door was opened and the doctor peeked out, beckoning to Coulson to come in. "You can only see her for a little while," the doctor murmured. "She's recovering."

Coulson didn't ask what she was recovering from- it could be any number of things. He felt bad going in there to give her an assignment so soon after she had gotten hurt, but that was his job. He entered, bracing himself, and immediately winced.

Natasha smiled weakly. "I know. It's bad," she murmured.

Coulson agreed with her. Every large slice she had recieved from the broken glass had been sealed up by stitches, and the spiky black thread stuck up from her skin. Her left arm was in a bright pink cast, too. Presumably she had not been allowed to select the color. Coulson guessed she had used it to break her fall.

"I didn't know you had a broken arm!" he exclaimed.

"Hey, that doesn't leave this room. I don't want people knowing the famous Black Widow has a pink cast. It'll make me look weak."

Phil smirked. "Even worse, they might start thinking you're a girl. God forbid."

That earned him a look. "I'm the best seductress this organization has, Phil. I think being a girl is a requirement. As a matter of fact, it's been a while since I got sent out to do my thing."

"Well, then you're in luck. Familiar with the name Tony Stark?"

"Sure. What did he do? Last I heard he was on our side."

"The kids that attacked us are taking refuge at his house. We need you to camoflague yourself as a worker in a position close to Stark, and then take the kids back here for research reasons," Phil explained.

Natasha slumped against her pillow. "So there's more then one kid."

"What?"

"You said kids. More than one."

Phil nodded. "There's two, a boy and a girl. They claim to be brother and sister. They go by the names Taylor and Tyler."

"What sort of research do you want to do?"

Phil was surprised. Nat didn't usually ask this many questions. Normally, she just took her mission at face value and did it. He hoped the spy wasn't turning soft. "These children have abilities we've never seen before. If it's something that's going to happen again, we need to be prepared for it, for the good of SHIELD and our nation." Even as the words left his lips he regretted them. They sounded so false as he played them back in his mind.

Natasha sighed. "And you're going to achieve this by hurting children," she murmured. Phil Coulson waited. She needed to decide whether she would take the assignment or not. He realized about ten seconds into the lull that she had never, to his knowledge, done a job that required her to harm a child. He would have to check that out and ask Fury if this was such a good idea. He also wondered if she and her partner had really concocted this idea, seeing how hesitant she was to take the job.

"I'll do it," she said, and his heart leaped. "So long as I don't have to actually hurt the kids."

Phil gave a businesslike nod, but inside he was torn. Why had she taken so long to decide, and was it a reason that could potentially affect her performance? Probably. He knew the former Russian spy had more demons than anyone else he knew- they were apparent in everything she did. One time an agent had jokingly called her a 'Soviet spy', and warned everyone to be careful around her, or she might nuke them.

Coulson wondered if that poor fool was out of the hospital yet. He briefly considered the idea of dropping in and suggesting a premature retirement while he was nearby, but dismissed the idea. It was a choice the man had probably already made on his own. He glanced back at Natasha, who had closed her eyes and was relaxing on her pillow. Coulson realized the pressure of the conversation must have taken a lot out of her and backed out of the door, trying not to make any noise.

_Einstein started barking, alerting Doc Brown to the presence of a bus, swerving at an alarming rate down a road with its lights off. Doc gasped._

_"They found me. I don't know how, but they found me. Run for it, Marty!"_

_Marty just stood there and looked confused. "Who is it?"_

_"The Libyans!"_

"You know what I don't understand?" Taylor mused. "Why Doc Brown thought it was a good idea to steal plutonium from armed terrorists. That is the most dumbass thing I have heard of."

Tyler paused the movie. "You know, there's a fan theory that he had a death wish."

"Why?"

"Well," he began, rewinding the movie that Tony had pointed them to, "See how he stands in front of the DeLorean here, and holds Marty's wrist so he can't run away? That there, dear sis, is a man who wants to die."

"Wow, he was lucky! If it had reached eighty-eight miles an hour any later, he still would've been a pancake and never would've known it worked. But why did he want Marty to die with him?"

"Probably because of the video camera, you know, having a record on tape in case the time machine actually did work. Or, that was why Doc wanted Marty there, at least. You see..."

Tony tuned out the conversation and looked at Pepper. "Okay, so they know a good movie when they see one. I still don't understand why this was important enough to warrant you dragging me out of my lab."

"To show you that these are just kids who are smart and feel totally at home around here. They're your kids, Tony! I mean, that one talks just like you," Pepper said, pointing at Tyler.

Tony shook his head slowly. "I'm still not convinced, Pepper. I mean, you want me to believe, completely out of left field, that my kids came back in time?" He glanced at the movie they were watching and smirked. Oh, the irony. "Why are they watching that anyways, if they have firsthand experience time traveling?"

"I think Taylor had a question about time travel, Tyler tried to explain it using the movie and then discovered she had never seen it. Anyways," she paused to check her watch, "You should get some sleep, Tony. Big day tomorrow."

Tony tried to remember. "What's tomorrow?"

"That weapons demonstration. In Afghanistan."

**Yay new chapter! Please review, as always, and I will give you an internet cookie. (::)**

_Can I have a cookie?_

**No. You don't read the story. You're in it. **

_Well, that doesn't mean I like it! A cookie might change my mind, though._

I've given up trying to make sense of these weird conversations. You know, Taylor, if you want a cookie you could just bake some yourself.

_Too lazy._


	10. Movies and Wars

**School SUUUUUCKS. GAHHHHHHHHHH!** **Stupid fr-**

-I'm going to assume that's my cue. Author, I'll handle the intro this time. You go lie down for a bit.

**...Okay. **

Well, al-righty then, it's the Author's third day back in 'academic prison', as she calls it, she's still adjusting, so cut her some slack if she's late with updates or whatever, okay? Thank you! 

"Why do you get to pick the next movie?" Tyler whined. He knew the sort of movie that his sister liked to watch, usually gruesome shoot-em-ups, and they didn't appeal to him at all.

"Because you picked Back to the Future," Taylor said. "JARVIS, can you pull up all of Dad's action movies, please?"

A British voice responded to her request. "Certainly, Miss Stark. Would you like me to include purely action movies, or movies that have split genres which include action?"

"The second one," Taylor answered, and a list of movies popped up on the screen. She grabbed the remote and started browsing.

"We could watch the sequels to The Matrix," Tyler offered.

"Nah. Those make my brain hurt."

"Terminator?"

"Last time we watched Judgement Day you went off on me for how impossible the ending was."

Tyler fell into a brooding silence, trying to think of another suggestion, while his sister browsed through the movies. Finally she said, "Die Hard or Predator?"

"Predator."

"Well, too bad! We're watching Die Hard. I just wanted you to feel like you had some choice about what we watched."

"Not that movie again! You watch it all the time, try something different. Besides, it's basically plotless."

Tyler regretted the remark the moment he made it and knew he would suffer for it later. "American hero kills Germans. That's basically every WWII movie every made."

Taylor was turning a little bit purple. "I can't believe I murdered a room full of SHIELD agents to get this back," she said in disgust.

Tyler whipped around. This was news to him. "You killed people to rescue me?"

"Yeah... I bet you killed people to get yourself captured, though, so what's the point?"

"What's the point? The point is that I KNOW you have much better control over your powers than I do. I try my hardest to not kill people, and for you it's a choice! It's a choice and you made it wrong, Taylor! Do you know how selfish that is?"

Green was starting to crowd the edges of Tyler's vision and he closed his eyes, taking deep breaths. In, out... in, out. He felt rather then saw Taylor scramble away from him, recognizing the danger almost immediately.

"How about we watch more of a feel-good movie?" she suggested, her voice small.

Tyler opened his eyes and sighed in relief as the green faded away. "Sure. That- that sounds good."

They ended up picking the opposite of a feel-good movie, as they both bawled their eyes out at _Good Will Hunting, _a movie neither of them had seen before since they weren't fond of dramas. It was really great, though, and knowing Robin Williams would be dead in a few years just made it all the sadder.

When Tony walked into the tear-fest, he was at first unsure of what he was seeing. Both kids had seemed pretty tough when he had seen them earlier, but maybe this was just the stress of a foreign environment taking its toll. Then he recognized the movie on the screen and understood. Pepper had forced him to watch it with her because it was apparently about a troubled genius not nearly as well off as he was, and she wanted him to be thankful for what he had. Tony still maintained that he hadn't shed a single tear during the movie. The footage of that night was deleted because it was glitchy, and not because Tony Stark didn't want his crying on film.

He cleared his throat, drawing the attention of what claimed to be his children. He still wasn't sure about that. "Listen up, kiddos. I'm gonna be gone for a few days, so until I get back, Pepper's your mommy. Listen to her, and don't tell her I said she was your mommy. Then she might think we have a thing, which we do not."

Taylor snickered, because her mom and dad definitely had more then just a 'thing' in the future. Tyler quickly attempted to keep Tony from noticing his sister's laughter by asking a question.

"Where're you going?"

"Afghanistan. Lovely vacation place this time of year, only a small chance you'll get pierced with red-hot shrapnel," Tony replied, completely unaware of the irony in his words.

Tyler and Taylor both stared at their father, jaws gaping, for a few seconds. It was only when he noticed the odd looks they were giving him that they attempted to compose a cover-up.

"What?" Tony asked.

"Nothing," Tyler responded just a little too quickly.

"It's just, we didn't know you had ever been to Afghanistan," Taylor added.

"It does seem like the sort of trip a person would like to forget."

"Yeah, plus you don't really go do weapons demonstrations in the future."

Tony gave Taylor a suspicious look. "I didn't say it was a weapons demonstration. How did you know that?"

She shrugged helplessly while her brother gave her a warning look. "Future?"

"But you just said you thought I'd never been to Afghanistan! You're lying to me, aren't you?"

"No, I just have a crummy memory," Taylor tried to salvage. "I remember you left for a demonstration about this point in time, but I didn't remember where."

Tyler nodded in an attempt to validate his sister's lame story.

Tony gave the two a distrustful look before turning away. "I have to go now, but I think I'll have a couple questions for you when I get back," he said, turning away.

The twins waited with bated breath for him to leave before collapsing on the couch.

"That was close," Taylor muttered.

Natasha was looking through her disguises. She had hair dye in every color of the rainbow, makeup that could change any of her features to make her look unrecognizable, and colored contacts, among other things. What to wear, what to do. She had been released from the hospital earlier then expected by convincing her doctors and Fury that appearing injured would win her sympathy points and help her get close to Stark and his new misfit children.

She picked out some dye that would make her appear brunette instead of redheaded, and carefully concealed her features with makeup. The trick, she thought, was to not put on too much, or else-

She groaned and glared at herself in the mirror. What was she doing? What had she become? She knew the amount of guilt that would come with completing this job. It would lay heavy on her psyche. Children were so much more fragile and innocent then adults. No matter how many carefully worded reassurances Coulson put forth, she knew what would happen to the kids if she did her job. They'd never see the light of day again. Many, many less dangerous threats had been locked up by SHIELD for much less.

"What are you thinking?" she asked herself aloud. Was she thinking that she was going to not complete her job, let the kids go? Of course not. She was a professional. She was just... what _was _she thinking?

No. Such thoughts were unwelcome and unprofessional. No, no, no. But as she picked up the makeup and continued reapplying it, memories from two very different times played through her head. One was her troubling childhood. The other was the time Agent Barton was sent to kill her.


	11. Time travel phone call?

**Yes I have survived my first week back in school!**

**In case anyone is wondering, Taylor and Tyler were originally intended to be split personalities of the same person, ****_Fight Club _****style, which is why they were both based off of different aspects of my own personality, but as I started to flesh their characters out more I realized I couldn't decide anything about physical appearance or whether the character would be a boy or a girl, so I made twins instead. There's your useless fact about this story for the day!**

Taylor and Tyler were trying to take their mind off the unavoidable torture their father would be going through in Afghanistan by exploring the mansion. It was huge. That wasn't necessarily surprising, considering they had always known Tony liked everything to be bigger, but what was slightly surprising was how clean it was.

"You feel like this place should be... I dunno, messier?" Taylor asked her brother, who was also drinking in the pure opulence of the sleek mansion.

"I suppose so. I wonder why that is? Maybe was something to do with the environment we were raised in..."

Taylor sensed that Tyler was approaching a long and scientific speech about impressions or childhood trauma or something else using big words she would definitely not understand and pulled out her phone and earbuds, getting prepared to tune him out and listen to music.

What she was not prepared for was when it rung. So far as she knew, no one in the past had her number, and she nearly dropped the phone like a hot potato. Tyler snatched it out of her hand just in time and read the Caller ID.

"It's Dad," he said incredulously.

Taylor scrambled to look over his shoulder at the screen. "NO WAY! Like, our dad? Or is it past Dad?"

"I don't think past Dad has your number. Was that the first time you took your phone out since getting here? Or, um... nevermind," Tyler trailed off, attempting to correct his tenses before giving up.

"I think so."

"So you had your phone this entire time and it never occurred to you to call someone?"

"Hey, I didn't think time-travelling phone calls were a thing! Can you blame me?"

They both stared at the phone, which was still ringing. Then Taylor grabbed it and swiped across the screen to pick it up, putting it on speaker.

"Hi Daddy?"

_"Taylor? Is that you? Where are you? Is your brother there?"_

"Me and Tyler are in your old house in Malibu, Dad," Taylor answered, trying her best to avoid lying.

_"My old house? It blew up! Are you kids trying to prank me again? If so, it's not funny, the team is worried sick and-"_

Taylor cut her father off. "I think I'm going to hand you over to Tyler now."

Tyler took the phone. "No prank, Dad. We think we're in your old house _before _it blew up."

Tony took a moment to digest that. _"Very funny, Tyler. I expected a bit more from you then your sister," _he said, ignoring Taylor's indignant huff. _"Where are you really?"_

"Seriously, Dad, we met past you and everything! Before you even became Iron Man! I'm not even sure how it happened, Taylor just found this machine in the lab and wanted to know if I could fix it and I did but then we were here and we were really scared and I was at SHIELD and Taylor came to rescue me even though she had to kill some SHIELD guys to do it and Dad we're really scared please believe us!" Tyler shouted, getting dangerously close to panic mode.

Taylor muttered, "Deep breaths, Tyler. I'll take the phone for a moment. You go lay down." She extracted the phone from her brother's trembling hand and held it to her ear just in time to hear the end of her dad's next question.

_"...look like?"_

"Come again?"

_"The invention. You said you found an invention in the lab. What did it look like?"_

Taylor wracked her memory. "Sort of just a gray box, I guess. It was dusty, like it hadn't been used in a long time. I figured that was just because you hadn't touched it in a while, since it didn't work."

_"Was there a red light on the top?"_

"I think so?"

**(The following vulgar rant has been deleted by the author for the sake of keeping this story rated T. When we pick up again, Taylor has learned some new curse words and Tony is slightly out of breath.)**

_"I forgot all about that thing!"_

"I guess it would be dumb at this point to ask what it does?"

_"It was a time machine I tried to build a while ago. Since time travel requires so much energy, it had to charge for about a year. When it was fully charged, the red light was supposed to turn on. It should have traveled back with you two, though, so you could get back."_

"We haven't seen it. Well, I know I didn't see it when I woke up at your house, and I don't think Tyler saw it when he was at SHIELD, although he was a little preoccupied."

_"Wait, you appeared at different places?"_

"Yeah. Why, is that important?"

_"It could be crucial. The time machine is supposed to only send one person back in time. I suppose both of you were sent because your genetic code is so similar. But it got confused as to where you should be sent, because you traveled from Avengers Tower, which doesn't exist yet in that time. So you were sent to the precursor to Avengers Tower, my mansion, and Tyler ended up where both of you were created, SHIELD."_

Taylor only understood about half of that, but she was pretty sure none of it had involved the current location of the time machine. "So, where's the time machine?"

_"It could be anywhere. After being forced to divert from its programming by sending two people back, it would have to make things up as it went along, something machines aren't too good at."_

"So when you say it made thing up as it went along..."

_"I mean it probably just chose a location at random. It could be at the bottom of the sea, on top of the Empire State Building, or in space."_

"Well... how do we find it?"

_"Tell Tyler to rig up a system signature search computer, signature 7at6o00plo6- are you writing this down?"_

"Just a second," Taylor said, frisking her brother to find a pen and paper. He always managed to have some on him, in case he got a random idea for some sort of invention. She held the phone up again. "Okay, shoot."

_"As I was saying, signature 7at6o00plo6f564n-" _Tony continued, but he was interrupted by the low-battery warning beep from Taylor's phone before it quickly died.

**So, a bit more information to exactly how the twins got sent back in time, as well as the question of _will they ever find the time machine and get back?"_**

**Also, I'm like Tyler. I always carry a notebook around in case I get an idea.**


	12. Reagan

**Hey guys! New chappie, yay! Also, if you like this, look up the story 'Home is Where the Time Machine is'. It's like my story, but better. Yeah, I'll admit it. :P**

**Also, this chapter does contain some mild spoilers for the Shawshank Redemption. If you haven't seen it, what the hell is wrong with you?**

**I own nothing but Taylor, Tyler, and Reagan, who is introduced in this chapter.**

Tyler woke up to see Taylor fiddling furiously with her phone. There was a piece of paper lying on his chest, covered with what appeared to be a bunch of random letters and numbers, scribbled down in a hurry.

Taylor looked up when she heard him groan. "Oh good, you're awake. Hey, can you figure out how to turn this on?" she asked, tossing him her phone. He grabbed it out of the air and held down the 'on' button. A little red lightning bolt flashed on the screen.

"Battery's dead. You need to charge it."

"But I don't have a charger!"

"That's because the charger for that type of phone won't be invented for five years. If Candy Crush is really that important to you, I'm sure Tony has a computer you can play other match-3 games on," Tyler said, not noticing his sister's horror-struck face.

"But-but then how will we get home?" she stammered.

"What does having your phone charged have to do with us getting home?"

She grabbed the sheet of paper off of his chest and waved it in his face. "This! Dad said that in order to find the time machine, which could apparently be anywhere, you have to set up some sort of computer search using a certain serial number- this is the start of it, the phone died before he could finish."

Tyler grabbed the paper and glared at it, willing the rest of the numbers to appear. Unfortunately, they didn't. That would save them a ton of time. "Wait- why could it be anywhere?"

"Some shit about two people going back in time and it getting confused, I dunno. I'd have had you handle the call and crazy science stuff, but you looked like you were close to going green."

Tyler was at a loss for words. "So if you'd remembered to recharge your phone..."

"I don't prepare for random time-travel trips, Tyler!"

"Well you could keep your phone charged in case of emergencies!"

"It was charged enough for a nine-one-one call, not a debate about time travel! We were safe at home, I seriously don't think either of us could have seen this coming!" Taylor exclaimed.

She was right, Tyler realized. "I know, I'm just... frustrated, I guess. I feel like we had a chance there and we blew it," he muttered, purposefully using the word 'we' so Taylor wouldn't feel like he was blaming her for the catastrophe any more then he already had.

Tyler turned his attention back to the charging port for Taylor's phone. "You know, I could maybe make a charger for this. So long as the proper microchip and conducting components already exist in the past and I won't have to make it from scratch, it probably won't be that hard."

Taylor glanced at him. Her brother was a certified genius, that was a fact she had always known. It was just that she had never been the sort of person to look at a problem and think, 'I can invent something to fix that.' She was more a 'slap some duct tape on it' type of person. It was something she was moderately proud of, since she considered herself one of the few 'regular-thinking' people in the Tower.

It wasn't that she was dumb. She wasn't. She just didn't want to have to do more work then was necessary.

"Really? I mean, you think you can do that?"

"Sure, so long as past Dad will help me with the wire-coating once he gets home from Afghanistan."

"Hey, speaking of that, do you think he'll be mad at us when he gets back?"

"How do you mean?"

"Well, he'll figure out that we knew he'd get kidnapped, right?" Taylor realized.

Tyler nodded along. "That's a substantial enough life event that his future children would have to know it. Not to mention he gets held for like a month while he makes the first Iron Man suit, and has to invent the miniature arc reactor to keep the shrapnel away from his heart."

"...he's really smart... he'll know we couldn't tell him, right?"

"I think he'll be too pissed to reflect on the endangerment of his potential future, Taylor."

Taylor decided to change the subject. "You wanna pick another movie?"

"Sure."

"You choose this time. _Good Will Hunting _was a great pick."

"Um, okay, if you liked that one... you saw _The Shawshank_ _Redemption, _right?"

"No."

"Oh my God. Best movie ever. I'm not exaggerating."

An hour later, the twins were sitting on the couch, transfixed by the movie. Taylor was talking to the screen. "No Brooksy... don't kill yourself... No you just got a new life don't do it don't do it oh..."

_'Brooks was here' is engraved onto a wooden ceiling rafter. The camera pans down to reveil that Brooks has hanged himself. _

Taylor burst into tears and her brother wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "He was an institutional man," Tyler said solemnly.

Pepper pushed the door open and slipped in, a young woman with brown hair following in her steps. Pepper shushed the young woman, who appeared about to greet the mourning twins. The two walked over and sat down on the couch. The twins barely acknowledged their presence. Taylor was still weeping loudly, and Tyler was attempting to console her. He had seen the impossibly sad movie before, so he was more prepared for the rather sudden and shocking loss of Brooksy, but his sister had been caught completely off guard.

The brunette looked utterly bewildered by what she was seeing. Pepper interpreted her befuddled expression correctly and pulled out her phone to explain over text.

_[These are the two kids you'll be watching, Reagan. The girl is Taylor and the boy is Tyler. Thank you so much for doing this, I have so much more to do right now since Tony's disappearance and these two need someone to watch them,] _Pepper texted.

Reagan glanced down at her pocked when her phone chimed. She pulled it out, read the text, and typed out a response.

_[No problem. What do they like to do?]_

Pepper stared at her phone for a moment, thinking about the question. _[I know they love movies. It's kind of all they've done since they came here.]_

_[Where did they come from?]_

_[I'm not sure. This is going to sound silly, but they claim to be Tony's future kids.]_

_[Okay. Where does Tony keep his video games, books, board games, things like that?]_

_[Wait, just like that? You're over it?]_

_[Sure. He invents some crazy-ass bullshit. I wouldn't be surprised if they were telling the truth.]_

_[Oh, right. You and he have met.]_

_[Yah.]_

_[Well, as to the games, you'll have to ask JARVIS.]_

_[Jarvis!? He's still alive? :DDDDD]_

_[What? I mean Tony's AI. It stands for Just A Really Very Intelligent System. He's built into the walls.]_

_[Oh. I thought you meant someone else.]_

Pepper wasn't sure what she had done, but she seemed to have dug up a bad memory. When she looked up at Reagan's profile, there were tears running down her cheeks. Something told her that it had nothing to do with the sad movie on the screen.

**Okay, that's chapter 12! Let me know if you like it by reviewing please!**


	13. Reagan Conversation

**Thank you so much for your kind review, Acae. Don't worry, the story's not over yet! (Not even close.)**

**I own Taylor, Tyler, and Reagan.**

Pepper quietly slipped away after the movie was over, leaving the twins and Reagan to make conversation. After a long, awkward pause, Reagan finally broke the silence.

"So... you're from the future?" she asked.

Tyler pounced on the opportunity. "Yup! We're Tony Stark's future kids! We didn't mean to come back in time- it was a total accident- and now we're stuck here."

Reagan had to giggle a little bit at the ridiculousness of that statement, and how he had said it in such a matter-of-fact manner. "How does one accidentally travel back in time?"

"Long story short, we found a broken thingmajig in our Dad's lab, and Tyler fixed it, and it sent us back in time and now we're here," Taylor explained.

Reagan smiled. "What's it like in the future? Do we have flying cars and pet dinosaurs?"

"No flying cars, sorry. Dad tried a couple of times but the weight of the car was always greater then the maximum lift that could be generated by arc reactor thrusters," Tyler said.

"And as for pet dinosaurs... well, there was that one supervillain who covered an island with them, right?"

"You might be thinking of _Jurassic Park," _Tyler offered. "I knew you saw it at too young an age."

"We're twins! We saw it at the same time!"

"Yes, but I was better able to comprehend what was happening."

"You're not smarter then me!"

"That's not what I said," Tyler defended, even though it was exactly what he had said, except in bigger words.

"I might not be a frigging genius, but I know a

shit-ton of things you don't know."

"Like what?"

Reagan cleared her throat, reminding the bickering siblings she was still there. "Wow, you guys really are twins. It's funny, though. You look nothing alike."

Tyler and Taylor both shrugged, not sure how to explain that away without giving away their origin. Tyler finally said, "Our parents said that too."

Reagan seemed to accept the explanation and moved on. "You guys want to do something? We could go to the beach. It's super nice out."

Taylor bit her lip. She had a bad habit of electrocuting any large bodies of water she happened to be in, something that had been discovered when she almost killed Tyler when they were in the big pool at Stark Tower. Tyler had apparently tracked her thoughts.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," he said.

Reagan looked disappointed. "Why not? You can both swim, right?"

Taylor said softly, "We can swim, but I never do."

"Are you scared to?"

"In a way."

"Well, alright. If you don't want to, I won't force you. I'll admit I'm a little disappointed, though," Reagan said before changing the subject. "Want to look around instead? We might find something really cool."

"Sure," the twins both said before attempting to jinx each other.

"Jinx!"

"Jinx!"

"I said it first that time," Taylor declared.

"No, it was the same time."

"No!"

"Hey, you can't argue this. You're jinxed."

"No, you are."

Taylor was getting really riled up, Tyler noticed. She was sparking a little bit. He leaned over and muttered in her ear, "Maybe calm down a little bit before our babysitter notices you're electrically powered?"

Reagan, in fact, had already noticed, and was trying to make sense of it, but soon gave up, becuase, well, you can't make sense of something like that. "Um, Taylor... why are you... there are sparks coming off of you. Should I be worried?"

Taylor was rendered mute for a moment. In the future, their powers were a well-known fact and they frequently helped their parents fight supervillains, but in the past... well, SHIELD already knew, but besides that, if anyone found out what they were capable of, she wasn't sure what would happen. It would probably be very bad.

"Static electicity?" she tried weakly.

"We were sitting on that couch for an awfully long time," Tyler said. He was also inwardly freaking out, but was doing better at keeping it under control because he'd had a lot of practice.

Reagan just shook her head. "Try again, kiddos."

Taylor took a deep breath and then recited the whole story. "So in the future our dad, Tony Stark, is part of a superhero team called the Avengers, and there are six of them. At some point this organization called SHIELD took blood from them, and made us out of that, so we got all of their powers. So Tyler is a supergenius who you never want to make mad, and I got lightning powers as well as being a fricking ninja."

Reagan stared at her for a moment before nodding. "Okay."

Tyler blinked. "Really? Just like that?"

"Sure. I've had my run-ins with shady science as well."

"Can I ask what happened?" Tyler asked tentatively.

Reagan thought for a moment and then nodded slowly. "Alright, but don't expect me to go into too much detail."

"What happened?"

"Basically, my dad needed a test subject and I was available. I don't want to say exactly what happened, mainly because I'm not sure. I was really young at the time, but you can bet your ass whatever it was wasn't legal. I ran away afterwards, and when I was old enough, applied for a job at Stark Industries."

Taylor and Tyler both stared at their babysitter for a moment, seeing her in an entirely different light for the first time. Tyler opened his mouth and was about to ask a question when he was interrupted by a knock on the door.

**I hope you liked this chapter! Sorry it took so long to write, I was busy with school and soccer.**


	14. Coulson pays a visit

**Sorry, I know last chapter was kind of just one long conversation... BUT THIS CHAPTER SHIT IS GOING TO GO DOWN, I PROMISE!**

They all stared at the door for a moment. Neither Tyler or Taylor was particularily eager to get it, the deaths of many, many SHIELD agents still fresh (or, in Tyler's case, slightly hazy and tinted green) in their minds. Reagan started towards the door, feeling a responsiblity to get it since she was the babysitter and all, but Taylor stuck out an arm to block her.

"Wait. JARVIS, who's outside?" she asked, directing the question towards the ceiling.

_"I do not recognize him, Miss Stark. Would you like me to inquire as to his name?" _the echoey British voice responded.

Reagan jumped and looked around when she heard the voice, and Taylor had to grab her arm to calm her down.

"Crap, he doesn't have Wordwide Facial Cross-Referenced Recognition software built in yet," Tyler said with a frown. "JARVIS, can you pull up the security feed on the TV instead?"

_"Certainly."_

"What good will that do?" Taylor asked.

"Well, we don't know who it is, but we might recognize them when we see them on the big screen. Plus we'll be able to tell if they're carrying a gun, which will be good to know if we ever intend on answering that door."

"But we only know what they look like in the future. We might not recognize them in the past."

"Fair point."

An image popped up on the screen, although, it being Tony Stark's house, who was both rich and a technological genius, the image was as clear as looking through a window. Both twins recognized the man immediately, and Taylor had to smile.

"Boy, some people just do not change."

She was right. Agent Phil Coulson looked exactly like he did when he was 'Uncle Phil', ten years in the future. He was tapping his foot patiently, and the twins quickly went into a hurried discussion.

"What do we do?" Tyler asked frantically.

"Why are you asking me? You're the one who always has the plan, remember?"

"Not when it comes to SHIELD, you know that!"

"Fine. We'll ask Reagan to make a plan. She isn't emotionally scarred," Taylor snapped.

Tyler shrugged in agreement and both twins turned to face their babysitter, who looked completely lost. Tyler realized suddenly that they were going to have to fill her in on the reasons for their indecisiveness if they were ever going to decide whether or not to open the door.

"Okay, so that guy out there is our Uncle Phil. He's nice and awesome and looks exactly the same in the future, but in this time he works for SHIELD, and they're the douchebags who tortured us after they created us in their lab," Tyler explained quickly.

"If we open the door, two things might happen. He might listen to us, or he might haul us back to his bosses," Taylor continued.

"And as nice as number one would be, we can't risk number two happening," Tyler finished.

Reagan had been following along, and when the twins had finished speaking in tandem, she nodded briskly. "Go hide. I'll answer the door. I'll ask him what he's here for and if he mentions you, I don't know you. If he mentions something else, I play along. I'll try to get a read on him, see if he's the sort that would drag lost and confused kids out to a goverment facility for testing or not."

Tyler and Taylor both stared at her for a moment. "That's... actually a really awesome idea," Tyler said.

"Thank you. I know. Now scoot!" Reagan scolded, making shooing motions with her hands. The twins dashed out of the living room and hid in a closet in Tony's bedroom, wincing at the evidence that their father was very much still living life the playboy way.

Reagan shouted at the door, "I'll be right there! Sorry!" before killing the security feed on the television screen and running to the door. She pulled it open, taking deep breaths so it would appear that she had just run to get to the door in time. Coulson smiled in greeting.

"Hello, miss. Is Virginia Potts here?"

"I'm afraid not, sir. She's had a lot of extra work to do, picking up all the extra slack since Mr. Stark has gone missing. She's worried sick about him," Reagan added to help sell the illusion. Everything she had said hadn't technically been a lie, but she was focused more on getting her image down. Right now, she was playing the role of the dedicated and trusted assisstant. Maybe one who knew this gig could lead to better things, and was fresh out of a prestigious college. Harvard, she decided.

"I understand. Would you please let me know when she comes back? My company uses Stark Industries tech, and we are very worried about whether our current contract will be perpetuated in the event of the unfortunate." This was bullshit, and Reagan knew it. The trick was in not letting on that she knew, instead maintaining the image of a young and smart pair of breasts hired by Tony Stark for two of the three aforementioned qualities.

"Maybe I could help you, sir. I was, after all, hired to help relieve Mr. Stark's workload. If you would give me the name of your company, I can research the details of your contract and tell you whether it will be perpetuated. We have had many clients call and ask similar questions, although you have been the only one so far who cares so much about maintaining a professional relationship with Stark Industries that you actually came to Mr. Stark's house. I assure you that we are flattered by your concern and value your business highly, but I fear you went to an unnecessary amount of trouble coming here in person when you could have just called," Reagan finished, feeling slightly out of breath.

She knew why Coulson was there. She also knew that when new clients signed up with Stark Industries, they were ensured that the billionaire's more self-destructive qualities wouldn't harm their own company by signing a lease stating that the only party who could discontinue the business relationship was the client, unless the client committed some felony or something. Reagan didn't remember the specifics.

"Thank you, ma'am, but I am of the belief that business meeting should always be conducted face to face, which is why I came here today."

"Sir, you could have gone to the actual Stark Industries building downtown. That is where Mrs. Potts is currently, and it would be better for conducting actual business. In fact," Reagan said, making a show of checking her watch, "If you leave now, you should still be able to catch her there."

Coulson nodded. He wasn't sure what to say. Every time he spoke, the helpful girl seemed to deflect him. He shouldn't be suspicious, but no one was that good. He forced a smile and said a complementary good-bye, turning away and tapping the button on his keyfob.

Reagan pulled the door shut and sighed in relief, sliding down until she was sitting on the floor. She liked to think of herself of having a thousand faces, but staying in a persona could be exausting. Still, she supposed that was what happened when you were a time traveler. You never knew whether you would have to be a nurse, a teacher, a soldier, or a lawyer.

She smiled, thinking about the time she had spent doing- just about everything, really- and went to give her young charges the all-clear.

**I think I'm going to give Reagan her own story, actually. Let me know if you like that idea, please!**


	15. NOW we

**Can I just take a moment to appreciate how awesome Portal is? Tyler and Taylor just started playing it. One is good at it- the other is not.**

_I don't see why it's so awesome. I'm stuck on Test Chamber Nine._

Seriously? Taylor, you need to start thinking with portals.

_WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?_

**Calm down, you guys. Roll story.**

When Reagan came to rescue the twins from the closet they were huddled in, they both looked at her questioningly.

"That was fast. What happened?" Tyler asked. He recalled his uncle sometimes being relentlessly persistent about things that were not nearly as important as he probably percieved tracking down him and his sister to be.

"I think I annoyed the living hell out of him," Reagan responded, looking somewhat amused by her own antics. "He was lying his balls off, pretending to work for some client of Tony's, so I put on my business face and blocked every punch he threw. I'm pretty sure he got sick of it after a while, because I gave him a way out and he took it."

"I wonder why he lied," Taylor said. "If he thought you were just a secretary or something, wouldn't it make more sense to flash a badge, push past you, and trash the place?"

"That would make sense if it were anyone besides Uncle Phil," Tyler mused. "He's got class. Besides, he was alone. It would take forever to search this house with even a team of people, and Reagan could totally have called security on his ass."

Reagan frowned. "Could I?"

"Well, technically no, but he would have thought you could have."

"Oh! I see what you mean. How did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"That thing you just did, sort of guessing what he was thinking."

Tyler shrugged. "I guess it's just... I have a sort of extra level of reasoning when I think. It's always been an instinct for me. It's the way I think. I guess for me it makes perfect sense, although I'm usually thinking a few steps ahead of whoever I'm talking to. And sometimes I figure out secrets and don't know they're supposed to be secrets. That can lead to some pretty embarrassing moments."

Taylor laughed. "Like that time you were talking to Justin Hammer with Dad and figured out he was sleeping with his secretary?"

"Well, it's not like they were trying to hide it! His hand was on her ass, not to mention the looks they kept giving each other. I'm surprised everyone in that room didn't figure it out."

"Justin Hammer... isn't he married?" Reagan asked.

Taylor nodded. "Fun fact, one hundred percent of people who commit adultery are married."

"Well, what about that time you nearly put all of the Avengers in comas because you were having a nightmare?" Tyler asked his sister, directing the conversation away from himself.

"That was perfectly reasonable. I thought they were zombies."

"That isn't a reasonable reason to almost murder your parents."

"So, if they were really zombies, you wouldn't be able to kill them to protect yourself? Weakling."

"No. I would try to cure them. And you watch too many zombie movies."

"You don't watch enough."

"I saw one. That was more than enough."

Reagan decided that the once-productive conversation had taken a weird turn and decided to ask a different question.

"So, what movie do you guys want to watch?"

For the next month or so, that was how things went. The twins got into small arguments rather frequently, but usually they were just for fun and junk instead of an actual fight. Reagan kept a watchful eye on the twins, but they never really did anything dumb. Tyler made little progress on fixing Taylor's phone, and it seemed like he was going to have to get help from the genius himself when he got back. It looked like they were just sitting around waiting. What they were waiting for, Reagan saw when JARVIS made an announcement, interrupting a viewing of _Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade._

_"Excuse the interruption, but there is a newscast on that I believe you will be interested in. It appears that Sir has returned and is holding a press conference," _the AI reported as the twins exchanged excited looks.

"He must have built the first Iron Man suit!" Taylor squealed.

Tyler nodded, grinning widely. "JARVIS, can you put that press conference on, please?"

_"Of course, sir."_

The television switched on to show a ragged and filthy-looking Tony Stark standing at a podium, holding a Burger King package and looking absolutely bombed out of his brain. He was visibly unsteady on his feet, and shook a little bit as he stepped forward to address the crowd. Taylor caught a glint of blue.

"Hey! There's the Arc Reactor!" she shouted, pointing at the little blue light.

Tyler peered closer to the screen, and smiled. "Course, sis. This is back when the damn thing actually needed to be in his chest."

"Oh, right. He wears it all the time anyways. I forget he doesn't need to, sometimes," Taylor admitted.

"He thinks it looks cool, and what would he do with that massive hole in his sternum if he wasn't wearing it anyways?"

"It does look cool."

"That is so not the point."

Reagan coughed softly and pointed to the screen, where Tony was beginning to talk. Both sibling instantly shut up and stared. They had seen this recording tons of times, of course, but they felt an obligation to witness the original speech.

"I have seen young Americans killed by the very weapons I built to protect them. That is why, from this point onwards, I am officially shutting down the weapons wing of Stark Industries,"Tony said before stepping down from the podium as every reporter in the room seemed to come to their feet at the same moment, pressing towards him in a wave of crazed excitement for what could be the next big story. Billionaire Goes Crazy, or maybe Stark Loses It, would be plastered all over the headlines come morning.

Tyler and Taylor both cheered for their father, only to have their happiness transform into anger as Tony was ushered away and Stane stepped up.

"Rat bastard," Taylor swore under her breath.

"Agreed."

"Would it be okay, while we're in the past, to warn Dad not to let that dickhead take over?"

"Well..." This was almost a trick question. There was no telling whether altering anything in the past would significantly change the future or not. "Maybe it would be better to just leave it as is."

"Why?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"Nah."

They were just about to turn the movie back on when the door slammed open and Tony Stark was guided inside by a very-much-relieved Pepper Potts. He looked even worse in person and slumped on the couch, looking almost exactly like you'd expect a person who had just gone through trauma to look.

Both twins simultaneously decided that there was really only one thing they could say.

"Hi, Dad."


	16. Asgardian Lightning

**Yes, Raven6224. Things are, indeed going to get a bit awkward** **in this chapter. XD**

Tony jumped. He had apparently not noticed them sitting there. "Wha... Seriously? SERIOUSLY? I was just held captive for a _frigging month _and that's all you have to say?"

Tyler shrugged. "Well, we already know the story. It turns out to be very important to your future."

Taylor nodded. "Yup. Sorry about Yinsen, by the way. He's with his family now, and that's what he wanted. Don't beat yourself up about it," she said.

"How..."

"Future."

"But..."

"Future."

For pretty much the first time in his life, Tony Stark was at a loss for words, mostly because he was having trouble fully comprehending the situation. These kids knew the details of his ordeal. Only he had known that Yinsen had died to be with his family. So they must have learned from him... or they would.

"You're from the future," he stated, a sense of genuine wonder permeating his voice. "You're actually from the future."

"Duh," Taylor said, promptly ruining the moment.

Tyler elbowed her. "I think what Taylor means is, we're glad you finally get it."

Tony just laughed. It felt good. He hadn't laughed in a month. But he finally noticed the elephant in the room, a young lady he was positive he had seen before.

"Who's that?" he asked, pointing at the twin's babysitter and partner in crime.

Tyler had to glance over his shoulder to see where his father was pointing. "Oh, that's Reagan. She's been watching us while you were gone."

"She looks sort of familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?"

It actually hurt Reagan that he didn't recognize her. She didn't blame him; he had only been a baby. Still, it was hard for her to look him in the eyes and answer. "I work for your company, Mister Stark. Perhaps you've seen me at meetings?"

Tony didn't look entirely convinced, but seemed to buy the explanation. "Well, it looks like your job is over now... has Pepper paid you already?"

Reagan shook her head and Tony peeled off a stack of hundred-dollar bills. "There you go. I have no idea what your rate was, but I'm pretty sure that's about a couple thousand dollars. Now, shoo," he joked.

Reagan nodded, biting her lip. "Of course. Thank you so much, Mister Stark." Her movements as she walked to the door were stiff and jerky. Taylor and Tyler both noticed, but Tony wasn't even watching anymore. Taylor almost wanted to call after her, very nearly did, but before she could their cool and understanding babysitter was out the door.

Tony turned back to his young charges- no, his children, he sternly reminded himself. That was going to take some getting used to. "So, you have any advice for me from the future?"

"Invest in Google?" Taylor suggested.

"Get a head start on algae fuel," Tyler offered.

"Prepare for a zombie apocalyse," Taylor said before Tyler drove an elbow into her ribs. "OW!"

A few sparks flew off of her skin and zapped Tyler. Tony flinched away. "What was that?" he asked in a slightly panicked voice.

Taylor gathered a ball of elcetricity in her hand. "Badass lightning powers, obviously."

Tony ducked for cover behind a nearby couch as Taylor cackled with laughter. Tyler just shook his head in disaproval. "Why would my kids have super powers?" he yelped.

Tyler sighed and lauched into an abbreviated explanation while Taylor decided to find out whether she could juggle the balls of lightning she conjured. It was slightly distracting. "We're adopted, sort of."

"Oh thank God. So I shouldn't be too worried that neither of you look like Pepper?"

"Right. We were made from a genetic milkshake, sort of. Hey, Taylor, did you already tell him about all this?" Tyler asked. His sister just shrugged, focusing her eyes on the balls of lightning that she was spinning in midair. Tony flinched every time one came near him.

"I dunno. You know I'm not good at remembering stuff."

"What's your friend Amy's phone number?"

Taylor frowned. "555-454-867-5309, why?"

"See, you have a fine memory, it's just full of useless crap like phone numbers," Tyler said.

"Wait, wait wait. That was not a phone number. It had at least three too many numbers," Tony broke in.

"In the future they start adding extra digits to phone numbers because they ran out of combinations," Tyler explained.

"Don't you get on me for remembering numbers! That's all you do! Your head is full of numbers and nothing else," Taylor complained.

"AS I WAS SAYING, we were made from genes from a bunch of people that I guess you haven't met yet, and then we moved in with you. So, that's why Taylor and I are so different. We got different combinations of genes from a very wide selection. For example- OHMYGOD TAYLOR WHAT DID YOU DO?" Tyler screamed, his attention immediately caught by an errant lightning bolt that had struck the couch and ignited.

"Jarvis, activate fire extinguishers!" Tony shouted.

_"Already in progress, sir," _JARVIS's smooth, monotone voice replied.

"Wow, JARVIS in the future is a lot better than your JARVIS. Whenever we start a fire, our JARVIS had it out within ten seconds," Tyler remarked as sprinklers descended from the ceiling.

"Do you start a lot of fires?" Tony relied, looking alarmed.

"Wait, stop the sprinklers!" Taylor shouted at the ceiling. Half of the couch was on fire at this point.

"Taylor, are you crazy? We don't want to destroy Dad's old house!"

"It's an Asgardian electrical fire, stupid! Water will make it-"

She was cut short as the sprinklers went on. The moment they touched the crackling flames, spears of lightning shot out in all directions. An explosion rocked the room and the lights flickered before going out completely. Taylor picked up her sentence like nothing had happened.

"-do that. Your wiring is probably pretty much completely shot now. The AIs will come back online after a manual reboot, though. We should probably just call the fire department now."

**OH MY GOD. THIS TOOK FOREVER. I HAD WRITER'S BLOCK AND SCHOOL WAS A BITCH. I am so sorry.**

**Also, I may be renaming this story from 'Spoilers' to 'Double Trouble' soon. Just a heads up.**


	17. Firemen

**SO, you guys are all, like, super awesome. That's all. Roll story.**

Tony, Taylor, and Tyler were sitting outside the house, waiting for the firefighters to finish putting out the numerous small fires inside (with fire extinguishers, NOT water, at Taylor's insistence) when Pepper arrived. One of the things Tony loved about her was her tendency to not freak out. She was too analytical for that. Instead, she simply surveyed the scene, which looked somewhat like a disaster movie, and heaved a long sigh. It was a 'what did you do this time' sigh.

Tyler and Taylor began strategically positioning themselves far, far away from the awkwardness that was about to ensue.

"Tony?" Pepper asked, her tone icy enough to . The twins sent praise to every God that existed that she was blaming their father. They usually got away with a lot because of this very phenomenon. Every time their mom saw a catastrophe, she just assumed it was Tony's fault and ran with it.

Of course, their father immediately sold them out. "Those two little bastards started a fire!" he shouted, pointing frantically at the twins. Tyler was alarmed to realize that Taylor looked somewhat proud.

"What did I do?" Tyler whined, a teenager instantly regressing to a five-year-old. "It was all her!"

"Hey, I warned you what setting off the sprinklers would do."

"Before it was too late to do anything."

"I didn't know that!"

Pepper put her head in her hands for a long moment. Then she fished a container of Advil out of her purse (Tyler was not at all surprised that she had to keep one on her at all times) and popped two in her mouth. They all froze for a moment, waiting for her verdict on the situation.

"I don't care whose fault it is. Just fix it. Tony, I came here to tell you that tonight, there's going to be a Stark Industries gala, for the investors. You need to be there. You haven't been seen in public since the press conference when you shut down the weapons wing-"

"That was this morning!"

"-and stocks are falling dramatically. You need to restore faith in your company quick, or we'll both be jobless before the end of the month. You need to look professional, and not like you just escaped from terrotist captivity. You could start by taking a shower," Pepper said briskly, not even looking up from the thin StarkPad in her hand or pausing for breath once during her tirade.

"You'll be jobless and poor. I'll still be a billionaire," Tony complained.

"Wow, he's immature no matter how old he is," Taylor whispered to Tyler, who found himself snickering. Both of their parents jerked their heads around to stare at them. The situation really wouldn't have been that funny in normal circumstances, but these were far from normal circumstances. Both twins doubled over laughing. Pepper rose an eyebrow at Tony.

"What is that supposed to mean? Is that angry? Disapproving? Joking? C'mon, Pep, you have to give me more than just an eyebrow twitch."

"No, I don't. For the love of God, get yourselves cleaned up."

When Tyler and Taylor shot her questioning looks about her use of a plural, she just nodded. "Yes, you too. You two look like you were just dragged behind a garbage truck along a particularily sooty road."

"That hurts," Taylor complained quietly, but didn't dare to object too loudly. She didn't want to draw the full force of her mother's anger down onto her.

A fireman strode up to the small group. "Mr. Stark, I believe we've managed to extinguish all of the fires scattered throughout your home. I have to say, I've never seen such a random arrangement of fires before. We found one in the garage. Anyways, the sofa is destroyed as well as a few chairs, one of your cars has some scorch marks, and none of the lights will turn on, but other than that, there's no major damage."

Tony groaned loudly. "Do I at least have running water?"

The fireman hesitated a moment. "I don't know, sir. When we were instructed not to use water, we decided not to test it. We weren't sure exactly what the consequenses might be."

"That was probably smart," Taylor said, examining her fingernails. "Any water in the pipes right now is electrified. You're gonna want to run it for a while before taking that shower."

Pepper just sighed. "I don't care if you bathe in the ocean. Just get clean, okay? I have to go. I have another one of your meetings at," she paused for a moment to check her watch, "-five minutes ago. You're welcome, by the way, for not dragging you along with me like a disobedient puppy."

She turned sharply on her heel and stalked back to the limo she had driven up in. Tyler guessed it was on permanent loan from Tony. That was an impressive display of trust from him, considering that they weren't even dating yet. Were they? Tyler had just confused himself. Time travel screwed with his brain, which was slightly impressive considering that he had an entirely different level of reasoning then the rest of the human race. He wondered what it was like for Taylor._  
_

"So, Pepper said we should bathe in the ocean. That sounds good to me," Taylor said absentmindedly.

Tony grinned enthusiastically. "All right! Swimming!"

Tyler sighed. "I know you're a genius, Dad, but sometimes I feel like I'm the only one here with half a brain. Is the arc reactor even waterproof at this point in time?"

Tony flinched. Memories of his head being plunged into scummy water, over and over again until he was soaked, flashed through his mind. "...yeah. Yeah, it's waterproof."

"Would you even have some swimsuits that fit us?"

"Actually, Pepper and I have some that we outgrew a while ago. Those would probably fit you. Hey, fire dude, is it safe to go back in yet?"

The firefighter looked surprised at being addressed as such, but nodded wordlessly before returning to a quiet conversation with some of his coworkers. Taylor and Tony practically ran inside, while Tyler followed more carefully, already trying to think of ways that this could go wrong.

By the time he thought of one, they were already down at the beach. Tyler was rinsing all of the soot from the fire off of himself, and Tony was apparently testing whether of not the arc reactor really was waterproof. Taylor had just finished changing, and was about to enter the water.

Tyler's eyes went wide.

Taylor's foot touched the water and a radius of lightning covered the bay.

**Sorry for the cliffie. I decided that this was a good place to end it (the chapter, not the story. The story still has a long, long, long way to go).**

**I had fun writing Pepper in this chapter! Coulson should show up soon, don't worry. And Natasha's got her undercover job coming up!**

**:)**


	18. Swimming Sucks

**So, someone reviewed and told me that if I didn't resolve that cliffhanger very quickly, Natasha would hunt down and kill me. Thank you, loyal reader. Your input is appreciated.**

We act kind of immature at the beginning of this chapter. Just a warning, because that's unusual. For me.

_I can't even pretend to be offended by that, because I'm too awesome to grow up._

Taylor...

_Lalalalala!_

**I'm beginning to think that letting you guys have this conversation space was a terrible, terrible mistake.**

_-Flashback-_

Taylor was sprawled on the couch, fiddling with her phone. Tyler was having a heated physics discussion with Bruce, despite the fact that Taylor continued to insist that physics discussions could never be heated. Steve was helping Pepper make breakfast, and Clint and Natasha had been dispatched to the basement to haul Tony away from his workstation. He had gone twelve hours without food, which was the limit of what Pepper would allow before she was allowed to use excessive force to put food in his face.

"A regular day in the Avengers Tower," Taylor observed with a smirk. That day was the anniversary of the time she and her twin had broken out of their cramped cell on the helicarrier and her parents had saved them. Her brother absently nodded in agreement with her statement.

JARVIS suddenly spoke up, interrupting the regularly sleepy morning monotony. _"Excuse me, but it appears to me that... Miss Stark, I believe you wanted me to refer to him as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?"_

Taylor grinned happily. "Lord Voldemort wants to visit, guys. Hey, JARVIS, lock all the doors and windows."

_"Indeed."_

Tyler looked up from his conversation with Bruce, alerted by the sound of locks snapping shut. "What's going on, Tay? Are we under attack?"

"Nope. The Dark Lord is visiting. I had JARVIS put footage of him on the TV. Come look, it's pretty funny," Taylor snickered.

"You know, when you call him the Dark Lord, it sounds kinda racist."

"I don't care."

"Same."

The twins sat together for a while, enjoying the footage of Fury hammering on the armored and reinforced door. After a while, he realized that he wasn't going to get through it using force, and stated shouting at the cameras instead. Taylor snickered when he noticed that there was a regiment of SHIELD agents behind him. As though they would do any good against Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

Tyler stood up. "I'll be right back. Got to go find something."

He returned seconds later with a high-tech microphone in his hand. Taylor's face split into a wide smile at the sight. "Yes. So much yes."

Tyler switched the mike on and held it up to his mouth. "Hello, sir. How may I help you today? I have to warn you, Mr. Stark disapproves of door-to-door marketing."

His voice boomed out of the massive speakers mounted on the sides of the Tower. Fury looked momentarily stunned. That was enough to set the twins laughing.

"Experiment Thirteen?" he asked.

"Tyler Stark, now. You want to talk to Taylor?" Tyler asked, passing the microphone to his twin, not waiting for an answer.

"Hey, douchebag. Those guys following you look pretty tense. I recommend a massage. There's this awesome place down the street, manager is a friend of my dad. That means you don't get a discount."

Fury sighed in frustration. He had come over to give the twins their files. He figured now that they were older, they'd appreciate having a record of where they came from. He wished the kids would just listen to him for a moment. Then he tracked the amount of pain that they had doubtless endured in SHIELD laboratories, and decided he had maybe forfeited that right.

He tossed the envelopes onto the steps. He would never admit it to them, but he was slightly glad that the Avengers had kidnapped Experiments 13 and 14. They had a future with their new family, something that they wouldn't even have a chance at if they'd remained trapped in SHIELD labs.

_-End Flashback-_

Tyler only remembered snatches of what came next. His vision switched from white to yellow to black to green so quickly his head spun. The cold water in the bay had begun to bubble as a result of its brief electrocution, and he registered Taylor dashing into the water, panic painted over her face. It quickly changed to fear. Tyler wondered dimly why she was scared of him before the Hulk swallowed his conciousness.

Taylor scrambled backwards out of the water as fast as her legs would let her. She felt like screaming at herself, but decided to save that for later when her life was not in immediate danger. Why hadn't she remembered? Stupid, stupid, stupid Taylor. There was a rock laying at her feet. She resisted smacking it into her forehead. Her train of self-hatred was interrupted rather abruptly by the thought of her father. He looked rather dazed, but at least he was still alive. Taylor hauled him out of the water and noticed with alarm that the Arc Reactor was sparking. She hoped she hadn't overloaded it.

At the moment, though, her immediate concern was Tyler. He was hulking out. Muscles bulged from his normally tiny frame, and his whole body was washed in a green tint. She guessed that her accidental electrocution of him had sped up his heart. Or caused him to panic. Or something. She was not an expert on such things. Maybe she would ask Tyler when she got him back. Now she just had to figure out how to go about getting him back.

Usually a strong bolt of lightning could scare the Hulk out of Tyler's head, but in order to gather the storm necessary to make a badass lightning strike, the sky needed to be at least overcast. Taylor frowned. It was annoyingly sunny.

Taylor was promptly sent flying when the Hulk's fist propelled her several feet off of the ground. She skipped over the water like a stone before catching her breath and conjuring a bit of wind to steady herself. Her brother, or the thing that had momentarily taken his place, had made it to the beach and was converging on her weakened and near-helpless father. Tony seemed unaware of the monster approaching him and was instead fiddling with his Arc Reactor.

"Dad! Look out!" Taylor screamed, her voice cracking with fear. Her dad didn't move, though, and she wondered if maybe he was in shock. Either from being surprised, or from literally being shocked by her. Taylor hated her powers sometimes. She knew Tyler was jealous of her ability to control herself, but she couldn't help being electrified. This time, however, it was going to work to her advantage, she decided.

"Hey, Hulk! Over here! Come get me!" she shouted, bare feet hovering just a few inches above the water, ready to submerge and spead lightning through the water the moment her brother splashed in. It brought him out, Taylor thought. I wonder if it can send him back.

The Hulk jerked around, releasing a threatening snarl. Taylor swallowed hard, but didn't lose her nerve. Tyler's green alter ego charged into the bay, and Taylor immediately released her hold on the winds, plunging herself into the bay. The Hulk shook with the energy zapping him, but remained upright. It looked like he was struggling, but Taylor was bad at telling.

Before she could muster another energy strike, her father did. A flash of light brighter than the sun lit up from behind the Hulk, who froze midstep. Then he rocked back and forth a couple times before toppling into the surf. Her father quickly followed suit. He absently looked down at the arc reactor in his chest, which was now sizzling and smoking.

"Cool," he mumbled. "It shoots lasers." Then he collapsed like a ragdoll.

Taylor sighed and started dragging both of them back to the house.

**Here's the next chapter. It was going to just be a more relaxing chapter with them swimming and such, but then I remembered Taylor's tendency to electrocute things and went with that instead.**

You're mean. This was going to be relaxing? What part of this was going to be relaxing?

_Well, it was very nice out._

...


End file.
